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Screenplay & Screenwriting Contests

Screenwriting Contests are competitions in which writers submit completed feature-length or short screenplays to be judged on different story elements. Prizes from screenwriting contests can be anything from receiving notes, all the way to taking meetings with agents and managers. While there are now many available, the best screenwriting contests usually offer a yearly monetary fellowship and or meetings with industry professionals and often lead to representation if a screenplay becomes a finalist in that competition.

By Dan Goforth Occasionally, I try to spotlight individual film festivals to give you a flavor of what they’re like. One of my favorite events is the Sidewalk Film Festival, named one of the “Top 25 coolest film festivals” by Movie Maker magazine. Time called it one of the “Top ten festivals for the...

By Lucy V. Hay So last month I was reading screenplay submissions for the Actors’ Read Through at London Screenwriters’ Festival in October. Delegates were asked to submit a short excerpt of their script for actors to read at the event, so writers might hear how their words on the page actually sound. I...

This summer, I judged The Hollywood Player Pitch Contest at NATPE’s PitchCon. For the past couple of years, I’ve helped TV Pitchers develop their materials and prepare for their pitches. I thought it might be helpful to share some Do‘s and Don’t‘s of what ought to be in your proposal when pitching a script. DO: Know WHAT your...

There’s been a bit of a buzz on Twitter lately as to whether script consultants are worth the price or not. Personally, I believe they are, and I’ll address the reasons why in an upcoming Balls of Steel column, but for today, let’s focus on some tools available to improve your script. I have...

As a screenwriter, you should be entering screenwriting contests to further your career. The reason for that is not necessarily to try and win a cash prize. It is to make significant contacts that can lead you to your ultimate goal of selling your scripts. There are contests that you should enter and many...

Let’s just assume you have a perfectly polished screenplay. I say that because the number one step to selling your screenplay is having a great script! So, let’s just assume you already did the work, the rewrites, the polishes, the analyzing of feedback. Here are the tools I have used over the years to help...

Three years ago, my team and I had an idea for a new kind of screenwriting contest. We called it The Industry Insider Screenwriting Contest, and in it, we: Provide a logline from a Industry Insider Ask screenwriters to submit a 15-page spec screenplay based on that logline Mentor the top ten screenwriters through...

Click to tweet this article to your friends and followers! I recently signed my first NDA for a feature-length writing assignment. I did it without an agent (although I’ve had one), without living in L.A. (although I was born there), and without pinning a producer to the file cabinet with brass brads until s/he...

We are raised to plan for the future. Upon our birth, our parents start squirreling away money for a college fund, fantasizing about their offspring becoming doctors, lawyers… I’m sure, rarely artists. Regardless, they optimistically make plans for us and for our rosy future. But what if there is no future? What if ‘future’...